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DELRON
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Rocky Raccoon
Author: Ian Herzog
Date: 2009
ADRIFT 4.0
Reviewed by Anon
Sounds like a neat idea at first,
but the intro immediately gives away the quality of the game. One paragraph (a
poorly written one, as well) dumps you off with little or no idea on what the
point of the game is.
Sure, you are supposed to get back to "Dan and
Nancy’s" house, in order to rescue your family. All right, seems simple enough.
Firstly, I looked around the beginning room, perhaps to fish for some clues or
some kinda of atmospheric setting to start it all off. One sentence tells you
about the room, describing it as "in a dark alley running east and west in the
middle of a big city". I’m sorry, but especially for the very introduction to
the game world, this is awful!
The other areas were logically
linked together (ie. alleys going to streets, sewers linking different city
roads, etc.) but sadly all lacked decent explanations! One area included a "pile
of logs". Now, I don’t know if the author isn’t familiar with dynamic/static
objects, but I was able to simply pick up and carry the logs! Remember, the
player is a four-year old raccoon in this adventure. Not too much thought there.
After wandering about for a while, I became frustrated
with the lack of descriptive items. The rooms would say things like "a barking
dog is here" when there really wasn’t. Trying to "look at the dog" did
absolutely nothing. Same happened with areas that claimed to have "a dumpster"
and "a bum", they were supposedly in the room but had no object to allow the
player to truly interact with the game’s universe.
Several characters were placed about, including "The Ratpack", whom I didn’t
know how to communicate with, and "Doc", the talking catfish. Earlier, I had
found a loose brick in a wall, with which I was instructed to remove it (per the
room’s description). It got me a golden necklace, which in turn informed me that
a "Doc" had sent me to find. Now, I would understand if Doc had previously
called me over the minute I entered his room, and explained to me about a hidden
trinket. But merely walking past him (I had no clue what topics he was
programmed with, his description was "A large mutated Catfish with a drinking
problem who is in a mourning period after losing his beloved goldfish wife to a
gang of fishnapping rats.") Once I had found the necklace on my own, I tried to
talk with Doc about it, and he congratulated me saying I could keep it as a
gift.
...huh?
I also
tried talking with the first character from earlier, The Ratpack, about Doc
(after struggling with him and his necklace quest). They just said he could give
me guidance.
About at this point of the game, I was 100% confused
and lost. Sorry, but you need to work on two things, if you are going to
continue making text adventures and/or remake this one.
1.
Make the player feel -inside- the locations. Being ditched into an alley with a
few words about it isn’t very personal; maybe you should try to start each room
with the sights, the smells, what it feels like to be standing in the place. If
you can learn to appeal to the senses, you’ll become a great writer.
2.
Include a bit more help for the player. You could experiment with creating a
backstory for your world, even if it is only for a few characters. The very
first part of the game could include a short narrative about the main possum; He
could talk about missing his family, or reinforce his fear/hatred of humans.
Mentioning people such as Doc would make it welcoming when the player finally
stumbled upon him while exploring. Offering too much help to the player is
always better than leaving them without any idea on what’s going on.
I
apologize if this is too long or harsh, but I didn’t want the theme for this
adventure to go to waste.
Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.
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